Le pénitencier (Stade de France 2009)

Biography

Born: 15 June 1943 in Paris, France

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

Johnny Hallyday was France's first and only full-fledged rock star. Other French artists may have been influenced by rock & roll, but none was as beholden to the original sources, or as enduringly successful, as Hallyday. He was a distinctly French phenomenon, never achieving recognition in the U.S. or U.K.; certainly, part of the reason was that a good chunk of his repertoire consisted of French-language covers of early American rock hits. Moreover, his appropriations of Elvis Presley and James...